A Bolt of Chance
by CatchingCraziness
Summary: When Steve crashed into the ocean he wasn't expecting to wake up inside someone else's head 38 years later. For Harry, it was like having a big brother that was always around. They would both follow each other anywhere, even to war. NO SLASH!
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This idea has been on my mind for a while but I wanted to finish Bitten in the Moonlight before starting it. I hope you like it. **

**Disclaimer: I own nothing! This counts for every chapter.**

**Chapter 1**

"_**Of course it is happening inside your head, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"**_

For 38 years Steve Rogers remained unaware of anything that was happening. He stayed frozen in the ice and his consciousness was put into a coma like state thanks to the serum that made him become Captain America, without it he would have surely died straight away.

The serum saved his life, but not even that could keep him alive and frozen for such a length of time and slowly, without Steve becoming aware, his soul began to leave his body behind.

That should have been the end of Steve Rogers, but in another universe on a cold Halloween night, a sacrifice caused by the strongest of love ripped the barrier between life and death for a few seconds. Those few moments were enough to save a one year old child from a certain death that rebounded onto its caster.

The events shouldn't have collided; they happened in different universes and neither was connected in the slightest to the other. Luckily, there was one thing that linked both incidents; a figure standing in the dark, hidden from everyone and everything.

Over the years, this figure had been ensuring Steve's soul stayed trapped in its body where it could live and accepting the sacrifice of a mother to save her child. However, instead of continuing as before, a flash of the future caused the figure to connect the two occurrences until the time was right.

For Steve, awareness was swift and abrupt; one moment he was crashing into the waves that would freeze him immediately and the next he was somewhere else. He couldn't move or speak, but he could hear and see and he was aware that he was moving.

His vision was slightly blurred but he could make out that he was sat in a destroyed bedroom; there was a body of a red-haired woman on the floor and he could hear a baby screaming. Everything became clear when a man picked him off the floor and began to talk to him, his eyes closed and his body fell asleep while his mind stayed awake.

It was hard to believe, but Steve knew instinctually that he was in someone else's body; the child that he'd heard screaming. He saw the memories of the red-haired woman and a man with messy black hair; the boy's parents.

Steve couldn't interact with the boy; Harry Potter. He didn't know if it was because the child was too young or because there was a barrier between them. As Harry grew older, Steve lived his life with him; he learnt how to let his mind go to sleep and how to take a step out of Harry's life to give the boy privacy.

Everything changed when Harry was five years old. He'd been living with his Aunt, Uncle and cousin for four years. They weren't kind to him; he was constantly insulted and he was forced to sleep in a cupboard under the stairs while wearing his cousin's cast-off clothing that was far too big for him, but Harry wasn't abused physically by them.

Except one time. On September 16th, Harry came home with a high mark for his Maths homework and Dudley; Harry's cousin, told his parents that he'd gotten a detention for not handing his own work in. He claimed that Harry had stolen his work and that was why he'd gotten such a high mark.

Uncle Vernon was furious when he heard what Dudley had told Aunt Petunia, he dragged Harry to the cupboard that was used as his bedroom and pushed him into the small space. It was an accident, but the force of the push caused Harry to hit his cheek on one of the shelves.

It was at that moment that all of Steve's protective emotions surged through Harry. During his time inside Harry's head, Steve had grown to think of the boy as a younger brother. For his part, Harry was aware that there was another presence in his mind, but he was too young to really understand that it wasn't normal and he didn't have anyone he could tell anyway.

The consequence of all the mixed emotions was that the barrier between Harry and Steve began to break. From that point on Steve could send his emotions to Harry; it was their way of communicating to each other. Harry could direct his thoughts and emotions to Steve, sometimes with a memory attached, but Steve could only use his emotions to reply.

Another effect was that Harry began to dream about Steve, except that they weren't dreams; they were Steve's memories, starting from a rough childhood and continuing up to the moment when he froze in the ice. Harry was ten years old by the time he'd finished viewing all of Steve's memories and he looked to Steve as a big brother who was always with him.

That could have been the end of it, Harry could have lived a long normal life that he would have shared with Steve, but it was never to be. Instead, events from before he was born began to effect his life, starting with a strange letter in the post that was addressed to the cupboard under the stairs.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

"_**I sometimes find that I simply have too many thoughts and memories crammed into my mind."**_

Finding out magic was real wasn't a big shock for Harry or Steve; they both had Steve's memories of the Tesseract and thanks to the fact that they were sharing the same body, they both knew there was something magical in the world.

They decided not to tell anyone that Steve was in Harry's head since they both agreed it wasn't normal; even for the magical world. The only being that knew was the Sorting Hat who had spoken to Steve as well as Harry during the Sorting; before sorting Harry into Gryffindor he told Steve that if he'd been a wizard he'd have suited Gryffindor perfectly.

Steve couldn't help Harry with his new studies; before he'd been able to send feelings of approval if Harry had got a question right so that they could study together. Harry was smarter than the other students in his class when he was in Muggle School since he had Steve's memories to help him.

Fortunately, Harry gained two of the best friends he could have; Ron Weasley; a pure-blood wizard whose family accepted Harry as one of their own, and Hermione Granger; a Muggle Born who was often classed as the smartest witch of her age.

Steve's nerves were worked to their limits through Harry's years at Hogwarts; starting in First year with a Defence teacher who was hiding Voldemort on the back of his head. That revelation had made Harry and Steve grateful that they hadn't ended up sharing a body that way.

In Harry's Second year he began to hear voices when all Steve heard was hissing; this fact would have helped Hermione, Ron and Harry – christened by their classmates as the Golden Trio – but Steve had no way of telling Harry what he could hear while Harry was hearing voices. When Harry began to die from a Basilisk bite, Steve too began to fade, so they realized that if Harry died so did Steve.

Third year was a blur of emotions; finding out that Harry had a God-Father but that he was the reason his parents were dead and then they found out he was framed. Steve was just as disappointed as Harry when Sirius had to go on the run, causing Harry to have to go back to his Aunt and Uncles.

Harry was sent into depression when he saw a fellow classmate die in his Fourth year; he'd seen people die in Steve's memories before and even mourned for Bucky; Steve's best friend, when he witnessed his death, but it was different to see it done in front of him.

In Fifth year, Steve was nearly discovered when Harry began taking Occlumency lessons with Snape, but he managed to cloak himself and the memories connected to himself and Snape never even suspected there was more to Harry's mind than what he could see. The link between Harry and Voldemort grew stronger but it never affected Steve; he didn't see the visions Harry saw unless he looked through his memories and Voldemort didn't know he was there.

They mourned Sirius together and Steve spent much of his time in the state he went to when he wanted to give Harry privacy. Steve accepted his death much quicker than Harry since he was more used to losing those he cared about, but he knew Harry needed more time because Steve still sometimes thought about his lost friends and of Peggy; wondering if they were alive and what had happened after he had frozen.

By the time Dumbledore died, Harry was too numb with death to feel truly affected; he was angry at the world and hid his feelings from everyone except Steve. The search for Voldemort's Horcruxes was one of the hardest trials Harry had to go through and when he found out that he had to die he was devastated.

Harry apologized to Steve as he walked to their death. He summoned his family; the ones that had been taken from him by death, with the Resurrection Stone but it didn't work when he tried to summon Steve. Steve told him that it didn't matter; he'd been ready to die years ago and it was a miracle that had saved him.

During Harry's talk with Dumbledore, Steve remained in Harry's head. Neither of them understood why Steve hadn't appeared at the 'train station' since Dumbledore told them that he knew Steve existed but hadn't found out until after he'd died. They guessed that the meeting with Dumbledore had happened in one part of Harry's head – the part that had held the Horcrux – and Steve was in a different part.

As soon as Voldemort was dead, Harry's new mission became getting Steve a new body so that he could live his own life. He started by calling together the Order of the Phoenix and Dumbledore's Army and telling them everything. After using a Pensieve to prove he was telling the truth and hadn't just gone insane from his last brush with death, Hermione began organizing everything and researching.

They discovered quickly that Steve was from another universe that was similar to their own and that the best way to give Steve his life back would be to find a way to that universe. It took nearly three years before, with everyone's help, Hermione managed to create a ritual that would take Harry to the other universe.

The problem was that Harry had to kill himself for the ritual to work. According to Hermione, the ritual would send both Steve and Harry to the other universe but there was no guarantee that either of them would survive. No one wanted him to try it, not even Steve, but accepted that he felt it was the only way. Hermione reassured everyone that it shouldn't kill them but they could tell she was nervous.

By the time the ritual was ready to perform, Harry was twenty years old. He'd said goodbye to everyone he knew and left everything to the Weasley's. Steve refused to have any part of it; he didn't want Harry to risk his life for him.

Once the ritual neared the end, Harry stood in a circle of blinding light but witnesses swore when asked that they saw someone stood next to him through the light; a man dressed in red, blue and white before Harry pointed his wand at himself and completed the spell that would either take them to another universe or kill them.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

"_**To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure."**_

White was the first thing that Harry registered and for a moment he thought he was back at the 'train station' and that he'd killed himself and Steve. The only thing that made him realize he was alive was the sound of someone stirring next to him.

He sat up slowly and looked around. The whiteness began to fade and he saw that he was in what looked to be a cave; there were stalactites hanging from the roof but it seemed brighter than it should have been.

There were two arches stood across from one another; they looked like the veil in the Department of Mysteries and that thought made Harry turn his attention to the person next to him instead. It took a few seconds to realize that it was Steve; he was wearing his Captain America outfit minus the helmet and shield.

Nervously, fearing that he'd disappear, Harry reached out and poked Steve in the arm, his finger went straight through him but Steve reacted to the poke anyway by opening his eyes and looking around himself; he took in all the details of the cave, though he seemed reluctant to look at the arches too.

They both stood up and looked at one another. Harry had seen Steve in memories but he'd never been able to properly interact with him while Steve was amazed to be back in his own body and able to look at Harry rather than through Harry's eyes.

"Did it work?" Steve asked, thinking of the ritual and then looking around again. "Because they don't seem like a good sign to me." He waved a hand in the direction of the arches.

"I don't know," Harry admitted. "But I don't think we're alive at the moment." To prove his point, Harry tried to poke Steve in the shoulder and watched as his hand went through him.

"Maybe it's only me that's dead," Steve suggested.

Harry frowned at that; he hadn't attempted a dangerous ritual that included killing himself just for Steve to remain in his half-alive state. Determined to find out whether they were both dead or not, Harry reached a hand out and touched one of the stalagmites that grew from the floor. His hand hit the stone without going through.

Steve heaved a sigh but followed Harry's example and reached his own hand out. They were both surprised when his hand hit the stone as well, proving that they were either dead or both half-alive.

Before they could have the chance to work out what had happened, a woman walked out from behind one of the rock formations and then stood facing them from her place in the middle of the two arches.

Harry reached for his wand the same time Steve went for his shield and both of them were annoyed to find the items missing. It worried Harry more than Steve since Harry remembered finishing the ritual with his wand in his hand.

"Who are you?" Steve demanded, moving slightly so that he could see the woman better. Harry followed his lead and frowned at her, there was something familiar about her; he felt like he should know who she was.

The woman had long black hair that fell to her waist and black eyes that seemed to shimmer with white lights. She was wearing a black long sleeved top that had a picture of a scythe on the front, a pair of black skinny jeans and black knee-high boots. A pendant of a pair of red wings with a black skull in the middle hung around her neck on a black chain.

"My name is Thana," she answered. Her voice brought memories of graveyards and sorrow, it was spoke in a whisper that was fit for someone's death bed and yet it seemed to echo around the cave as if she's shouted. "On me the portion of your time depends, my absence lengthens life, my presence ends…" (*****)

The feeling of familiarity strengthened and Harry found himself speaking before he could even think about what to say. "Do you have another name?"

Her blood red lips curled up into what should have been a smile but caused a shiver to go down their spines. "I have many names, Young Harry, but I think the one you're looking for would be Death."

"Death," Steve swallowed. "So we're dead then? The ritual failed?"

Thana regarded them both for a few moments before motioning with her hand for them to come closer to the arches. They went up hesitantly; if they were already dead there wasn't much else she could do to them and she seemed to have the most power in this situation.

"This arch would take you back to your universe, Young Harry," Thana waved a hand at the arch on her left; the inside of the arch looked like a gentle waterfall flowing downwards. "If you go through it you will find yourself in the same place you were when you left. Should Steve Rogers decide to go through with you I am able to let him take his body back too."

She waved a hand at the other arch on her right; this one looked like a waterfall too but it was angrier than the other one and there was a red flash of light every few seconds so that it looked like blood was pouring down with water.

"This arch would take you to the universe Steve Rogers came from," Thana continued once we'd examined the arch. "You would go through with your body and magic, though it would be different to your own universe; more limiting. Meanwhile, Steve Rogers would remain in your head until his body is found and defrosted. The only reason Steve Rogers isn't dead already is that I put his soul inside your body until his own body can be inhabited once more."

"So, I'd go back inside Harry's head until my body was found?" Steve concluded, thinking about everything they'd been told.

"Indeed," Thana flicked a dismissive glance at him and went back to looking at Harry. Harry got the feeling that she wouldn't have explained anything if it had just been Steve on his own. "Should you choose the second option, you would discover that you could talk to each other telepathically, even after Steve Rogers gets his body back; it's a side-effect of sharing a body for so long. It will happen even if you go through the first arch."

"The arch that leads to Steve's universe looks more violent than the other," Harry pointed out. "Why is that?"

"If you had come a few years ago, Young Harry, you would have seen both arches looking the same," Thana explained. "Your universe is peaceful now, your war is finished."

"Not completely," Harry argued, frowning in thought. "The Muggles are still at war."

"They have a different arch," Thana dismissed. "They do not concern you at this moment, Young Harry."

"My universe is at war?" Steve worried. "What sort of war?"

"I cannot tell you that," she turned to gaze into the stormy arch. "I can only tell you that without you, Steve Rogers, it will be lost."

"I'm going back," Steve decided, smiling at Harry. "You don't have to come with me, go back and settle down; you've done enough fighting already."

"So have you," Harry countered. "I'm going with you. If I don't you'll spend the whole time until your body's found unaware of the world."

"Once you step through, you may never come back," Thana warned. "There is no way of doing the ritual again and going back. If you step through an arch you will have to stay there."

"If we step through an arch?" Steve repeated. "Is there another choice?"

"You could die," she offered emotionlessly, the lights in her eyes intensifying. "Well, at least you can, Steve Rogers."

"What do you mean?" Harry demanded.

"I mean what I say, Young Harry," she replied. "You're Master of Death. Therefore you get what comes with it; you cannot die until you choose, nor may you age until you wish too. You can make yourself younger but not older and you will still feel pain, even if you can't die."

"I-I can't die?" Harry repeated with a stutter. Steve grimaced sympathetically, looking like he would have patted him on the shoulder if he'd been able to.

Thana tilted her head. "Only if you choose not to. Though I should warn you that I may not allow you to die. As long as you are Master of Death, no one else may claim the title and I know you won't misuse it."

Harry pushed the thoughts that brought into the back of his mind and decided to think about it later; he didn't want to think about his mortality – or lack of it – when there was nothing he could do about it.

"I know which arch I want to go through," Steve announced, trying to change the subject; he knew that it was a sore spot for Harry.

Harry nodded and stepped forward so that he was standing between the arches. "I'm going with him."

"Then go," Thana whispered with her mournful voice. They blinked and she was gone as if she'd never been there, leaving them alone with the two arches. Exchanging silent looks, they stepped in front of the stormy red tinted arch and, after a last glance towards the universe they were leaving behind, walked through the war filled veil.

(*****)** This is taken from An Orphic Hymn that I altered very slightly. **


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

"_**It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live."**_

It was like learning magic from the very start for Harry. In this new universe he had rediscover everything that he could do and his limits. He started by freezing his body at age twenty so that he wouldn't age; if there was a war to fight he'd rather fight it in a young healthy body and Thana hadn't said when the war would happen.

The powers he did have were incredible but he had a lot more limits and couldn't do many things that he used to be able to. He was able to transform into any animal he wanted for as long as he wanted and teleport silently but he wasn't able to perform any other type of magic. The bright side was that he could take on aspects of an animal without transforming fully, which would be helpful if he got into a fight.

One of his abilities was being able to make clothing appear on himself with a thought, but Harry classed the power in with his shape-shifting since the clothing had to go somewhere when he was in animal form.

The only other thing that could be classed as a power was the ability to talk telepathically with Steve, which was helpful because until they could find his body, Steve was back to being stuck inside Harry's head.

Harry spent the first six years of his time in the new universe learning how to use his magic and searching for where Steve crashed the plane into the ice. Steve insisted that Harry should actually try to enjoy life instead of searching non-stop for Steve's body.

As the years went by, events began to happen that would change everything. It started by someone called Bruce Banner trying to replicate the serum used on Steve; it went horribly wrong and left Bruce with terrifying gamma-radiation poisoning side-effects.

Harry found out about it too late to be able to be of any help but he tried to keep track of where Dr Banner was so that he could talk to him if he ever needed too. Dr Banner spent most of his time trying to keep off anyone's radar, so he was a hard man to keep an eye on.

The next great incident was Tony Start announcing to the world that he was Iron Man three years later; Harry had been keeping tabs on Tony ever since he came back from Afghanistan because Steve had wanted to know how his friend's son had turned out. It was a bit of a surprise that Tony would choose to spend his free time helping others when he was meant to be some sort of narcissist but Steve remembered that Howard often got called the same thing and he turned out okay.

Harry and Steve often debated about whether or not to talk to Tony on the grounds that Howard spent many years after Steve went down looking for the body. With the information that Howard had, Harry might have been able to find Steve but neither of them were sure what Tony's reaction would be.

In the end, they decided against it and continued waiting for the information that would lead them to Steve's body. Since he'd left everything he owned in his own universe, Harry tried out lots of different jobs to earn money but he wasn't employed very often because of the fact he didn't have any records.

Any money he did earn went towards food, so he spent most of his time in the form of some type of bird and sleeping in trees. The ability to create clothing was extremely helpful for when he had to go to work or buy food but during his spare time he tended to stay in bird form and feel the sensation of flight again.

By 2010, when Harry, had he chosen to age, would have been thirty, everything seemed to happen at the same time. A wave of power came out of nowhere and only Harry felt it; it was the feeling he got when teleporting only magnified and it happened more than once.

While he was trying to figure out where the power came from, Steve's presence began to fade slightly, this alerted them to the fact that his body must have been found. It worried both of them since they didn't know who had found Steve or where he would wake up.

Finally, Steve's presence faded completely; Harry knew instinctually that Steve was back inside his own body, but that the body was still asleep otherwise they'd have been able to talk telepathically like before. He renewed his search for Steve, but whoever had found him had hidden him incredibly well.

It was a worrying few days for Harry; he couldn't remember a time when Steve hadn't been with him and to find him suddenly gone from his mind was a stressing experience. He was on the verge of a panic attack when he at least felt Steve's body wake up and the feeling of mild panic that he knew Steve hadn't meant to send to him.

_Where are you?_ Harry asked urgently, sending the thought to Steve through their link. _What's happening?_

Instead of answering, Steve opened his mind so Harry could see what was happening; he saw a woman dressed in old fashioned clothing and he could hear a game that Steve had already been to playing. Steve came to the conclusion that they were letting him think he was still in the 1940's but he didn't know why.

He ran from the room and ended up in the middle of a street, surrounded by cars and buildings with flashing lights. It would have over whelmed him if it hadn't been for the fact that he'd seen it all already while spending time in Harry's head.

"At ease, soldier!" A man with an eye-patch was talking to him. "Look, I'm sorry about that little show back there, but we thought it best to break it to you slowly."

"Break what?" Steve asked while keeping his mind open to Harry.

_I'm on my way, _Harry told him. _In eagle form so be ready to raise an arm for me to land on._

"You've been asleep, Cap. For almost 70 years," the man said it gently; as if he was trying to make sure Steve wouldn't panic.

Steve stayed silent; he guessed that the best response wouldn't be to tell the stranger that he already knew how long he'd been asleep. The man mistook his silence as shock and continued speaking.

"You gonna be okay?" He asked. Steve was going to reply that he'd be fine once he got some answers, but Harry interrupted before he could.

_Incoming!_ Was the only warning he got before a black eagle came into his line of sight. Steve raised his arm and the eagle landed on it with ease; the bird had a white lightning bolt on its head in the same place that Harry had his scar.

The stranger had a gun trained on Harry in his eagle form; he didn't show much emotion but Harry guessed that a normal person would be showing some amount of shock. Steve frowned at the gun and then looked around at all the people who were staring at them.

"Maybe we should talk somewhere more private?" He suggested, nodding his head towards the curious bystanders.

They filed back into the building that Steve had escaped from, the man introduced himself as Nick Fury; the director of Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division (S.H.I.E.L.D. for short).

It was apparently founded by Howard Stark; they kept track of any dangers to the Earth and of people who might be of some help. Fury told Steve that he was classed as a member of Shield since Howard had added him to the database even though he was suspected dead. This meant that he would get a salary and Shield would re-open his bank accounts and sort out all the documents he needed to live in the twenty-first century.

"Can you create documents for Harry?" Steve asked after a brief telepathic conversation.

Fury leant back in his seat. "Who's Harry?"

Taking his cue, the eagle jumped off of the back of Steve's chair and transformed mid-air so that he landed on his feet as Harry in a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt. Fury stood up and trained his gun on him; the previous relaxed air was completely gone.

"I'm Harry," Harry ignored the gun. "Can you get me some documents or not?"

When it became apparent that Harry wasn't going to be intimidated by the gun, Fury sent one of the other agents to fetch the folder that Shield had on Steve and a blank one for Harry to fill in. a few moments later, a female agent walked in carrying two folders.

Steve began flipping through his file; taking note of the sheets that contained information about his old team. There was even a piece of paper containing information about Peggy that he memorized before continuing to look through it.

Harry smiled at the papers in front of him and began filling them in. Fury, who was reading over his shoulder, frowned at the answers that he wrote down and once he was done the file was picked up so that Fury could read it properly.

"Name: Harry Potter," he read aloud. "Code name: Bolt."

He raised an eyebrow at the name and Harry moved his hair so that Fury could see the scar on his forehead; the mark appeared on every animal form he chose. He'd got the nickname from Steve who mentioned that he'd need a code name and it might as well be about his scar. Personally, Harry preferred it to any of his previous names (Boy-Who-Lived, really?).

"Age: 20. Date of birth: July 31st 1980," Fury frowned at him. "That would make you thirty years old."

"I'm twenty years old," Harry smirked at him. "Next year I'll be twenty and ten years from now I'll still be twenty years old. Check the 'Abilities' part."

Fury skimmed the rest of the information until he got to that part. "Abilities: Shape-shifter, can teleport, telepathic (with Steve only), can create clothing with a thought and immortal."

"Exactly," Harry leant back on his chair so that it was balancing on two legs while Steve watched him with amusement.

"So if I shot you now, you'd live?" Fury asked sceptically, raising his gun for emphasis.

Harry brought the chair back down with a bang. "Yep, though it would hurt like a bugger so I'd prefer it if you didn't."

Fury didn't look convinced, but he let the subject drop. "You've written here that Steve is your brother. How can that be when you were born 62 years apart and there's no records of you ever existing?"

"We're brothers," Steve told him firmly. "Blood doesn't matter when you've lived your whole life with someone like we have. Harry lived every moment of my life with me and I lived every minute of his. That makes him my brother."

"Do you have a stapler?" Harry interrupted while Fury tried to make sense of everything Steve had just told him. Almost absently, he waved an agent over who handed Harry a stapler. With an almost manic grin, Harry grabbed Steve's folder and stapled it to his own. "Where he goes, I go."


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

"_**It is important to fight and fight again, and keep fighting, for only then can evil be kept at bay though never quite eradicated."**_

Steve gave one last hit at the punching bag and then watched as it broke off of the chain and hit the floor. He sighed and went to pick up another one when he saw Fury enter the room; Harry abandoned his seat on the bench and walked over so that he could meet Fury as he reached Steve.

"Trouble sleeping?" Fury asked, casting a glance over the room.

"My body slept or seventy years, sir. I think I've had my fill," Steve told him, beginning to take off the bandages wrapped around his hands.

"Then you should be out, celebrating, seeing the world," Fury told them, flicking a look at Harry who had snorted.

"I've seen all I need to," Steve replied, choosing not to mention that most of what he'd seen had been through Harry. "They say we won the war. They didn't say what we lost."

"We've made some mistakes along the way," Fury admitted. "Some very recently."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Are you here with a mission?" He asked the question before Steve could.

"I am," Fury said. Harry got the impression that he preferred Steve over him but that was probably because Steve was always respectful and Harry couldn't care less.

"Trying to get me back into the world?" Steve wondered, an undertone of amusement in his voice as he listened to Harry's thoughts.

"Trying to save it," Fury handed a file to Steve. Harry leaned over Steve's shoulder so that he could look; it was a folder containing information about the Tesseract. The Tesseract interested Harry; he thought it looked like the closest thing this universe had to magic.

"Hydra's secret weapon," Steve stated blandly, unimpressed.

"Howard Stark fished that out of the ocean when he was looking for you. He thought what we think; the Tesseract could be the key to unlimited sustainable energy," he paused before adding. "That's something the world sorely needs."

"Who stole it?" Harry demanded, imagining what it could do in the wrong hands and all the death it could cause. Steve was thinking the same thing and wondering how it was taken.

"He's called Loki. He's not from around here," Fury answered. Harry and Steve exchanged looks, wondering if this Loki was from another universe like Harry was. "There's a lot we'll have to bring you up to speed on if you're in. The world has gotten even stranger than you already know"

"At this point, I doubt anything would surprise me," Steve sighed, thinking of his time in Harry's head and all the magic he'd seen.

Harry coughed to hide his laugh, causing Fury to turn his attention towards him. "Of course, you'll be coming too, won't you?" He addressed Steve again before Harry could answer. "Ten bucks says you're wrong." Steve picks up the punching bag effortlessly as Fury continues to speak. "There's a debriefing package waiting for both you back at your apartment."

Shield had provided them with an apartment when they had said that they'd prefer to live together; both of them felt uneasy when they were away from each other for too long after spending every second together. They were sure that in time they'd be able to live separate lives but for now they needed the security and reassurance.

"What would you have done if we'd said no?" Harry inquired. "Would some poor agent have to get the debriefing packages back before we found them?"

"Is there anything you can tell us about the Tesseract that we ought to know now?" Fury asked, ignoring Harry. He tended to do this a lot; it amused Steve endlessly to watch Harry come out with random phrases that Fury just pretended he hadn't heard.

Steve began leaving the room with the punching bag on his shoulder and Harry trailing behind. Harry saw the direction Steve's thoughts had gone it and winced slightly; Steve was thinking about all the damage the Tesseract caused last time.

"You should have left it in the ocean," he told Fury shortly.

The debriefing turned out to be information about what Shield had been doing with the Tesseract since finding it and details about other people who would be brought in as well. It explained who Loki was and the fact that his brother, Thor, had come to Earth first before leaving.

About three hours after they'd gotten back to their apartment an agent came to collect them. Harry noticed that the agent seemed to focus completely on Steve as they climbed into the small plane that would take them to Shield's base.

The agent introduced himself as Phil Coulson and then handed them a computer screen with extra information about the people they would be meeting. Steve skipped straight to the bit containing Dr Banner who they had already heard a little about from what Harry had managed to find while Steve was still frozen and sharing Harry's head.

"So this Dr Banner was trying to replicate the serum that was used on me?" Steve confirmed, watching as the Hulk began destroying things on the screen. Harry stared at the image, wondering if Dr Banner could control himself in the Hulk form.

"A lot of people were," Coulson informed them. "You were the world's first superhero. Banner thought gamma radiation might hold the key to unlocking Erskine's original formula."

"Didn't really go his way, did it?" Steve placed the screen down next to him.

Harry snickered slightly. "Bit of understatement there, Cap."

"When he's got that thing though, guy's like a Stephen Hawking," Coulson continued. There was a pause as he realized that Steve probably wouldn't know who that was. "He's like a smart person."

Harry picked the screen back up and started to go through all the files looking for a decent game to play. Coulson clearly wasn't interested in Harry since he was acting as though the only other person on the plane with him was Steve.

"I gotta say, it's an honour to meet you, officially. I sort of met you, I mean, I watched you while you were sleeping," Coulson stuttered and then blushed as he realized what he'd said.

Harry struggled to keep from laughing as he sent his thoughts toward Steve. _You've got a fan boy!_

Steve shot Harry a glare. _You can't talk. Remember Colin?_ They paused as they remembered the boy that used to love taking photos of Harry before he'd died.

"I mean, I was...I was present while you were unconscious from the ice. You know, it's really, it's just a...just a huge honour to have you on board," Coulson was still struggling to speak to Steve without making more of a fool of himself.

"Well, I hope I'm the man for the job," Steve smiled, trying to make the man feel more at ease.

Harry huffed. "Charming, completely forget about me why don't you."

"Don't worry," Steve grinned at him. "We will."

"Uh...we've made some modifications to the uniform," Coulson said, clearly unsure what to think about their interaction. "I had a little design input."

"The uniform?" Steve blinked in surprise. "Aren't the stars and stripes a little...old fashioned?"

"Everything that's happening, the things that are about to come to light, people might just need a little old fashioned," Coulson reassured him.

"My brother," Harry pretended to be overwhelmed with emotion. "The star spangled man with a plan!"

Steve glared at him as he began to whistle the Captain America tune that Steve used to perform to before he was allowed to go on missions. Coulson stared at Harry; he'd read his file and knew that they classed each other as brothers but they seemed totally different to him.

The plane landed on what looked like a giant boat. Coulson had to leave them once they got out, but a woman with short red hair came over to them. Harry remembered that she'd been in the file; Agent Natasha Romanoff.

"There was quite the buzz around here, finding you in the ice. I thought Coulson was gonna swoon. Did he ask you to sign his Captain America trading cards yet?" She began speaking once Coulson had left.

"Trading cards?" Steve and Harry said at the same time.

"They're vintage, he's very proud," Natasha told them.

Harry laughed out right at that. "You're on trading cards, Cap. Where can I start collecting?"

"Mock all you like," Steve retorted. "But if I remember correctly there was talk about putting you on the Chocolate Frog cards."

Steve spotted and called over Dr Banner before Harry could think of a reply. Harry watched as Steve shook Dr Banner's hand, Dr Banner looked like a very nervous sort of guy and he reminded Harry a little of Remus.

"Oh, yeah. Hi. They told me you'd be coming," Bruce took a glance at Harry that clearly said they hadn't told him that Harry would be there or even who Harry was.

"Harry Potter," they shook hands and Bruce gave his own name.

"Word is you can find the cube," Steve stated curiously.

"Is that the only word on me?" Bruce asked nervously.

Steve quickly started to reassure him. "Only word I care about."

Harry went for a different approach and grinned at the man. "I think it's cool. Have you ever tried dying your hair to see if the Hulk's hair changes colour too?"

Bruce blinked at Harry for a few seconds while he tried to make sense of what he'd just been asked. Steve was trying desperately not to start laughing and Natasha was wondering where Shield found these people, wasn't Stark enough?

"Gentlemen, you may wanna step inside in a minute. It's gonna get a little hard to breath," Natasha told them as the 'boat' began to shake.

"Is this is a submarine?" Steve asked.

Bruce looked at Natasha in disbelief. "Really? They wanted me in a submerged pressurized metal container?"

He followed Steve and Harry as they walked to the edge and watched as giant turbines began appearing. It was clear that the thing was meant to fly and it started to life up while they were staring at it. Harry remembered reading the name Helicarrier in one of the files and realized that it referred to the Shield base.

"Oh, no," Bruce looked like he was caught between amusement and panic. "This is much worse."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

"_**Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open."**_

Steve, Harry and Bruce followed Natasha as she led the way inside the Helicarrier. Fury was stood in the middle of the main room surrounded by computer screens. He nodded at them as they looked around and accepted the ten bucks that Steve gave him.

"Doctor," Fury addressed Bruce. "Thank you for coming."

"Thanks for asking nicely," Bruce responded dryly. "So, uh...how long am I staying?"

"Once we get our hands on the Tesseract, you're in the clear," Fury reassured him.

Bruce began taking off his coat as he talked. "Where are you with that?"

"We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet," Coulson explained. "Cell phones, laptops. If it's connected to a satellite, it's eyes and ears for us."

Natasha spoke up from where she was crouched down next to a computer screen. "That's still not gonna find them in time." There was a picture of a man on the screen that Harry recognized as Agent Clint Barton, also known as Hawkeye. He and Natasha, whose code name was Black Widow, usually worked together on missions but he was apparently under some sort of mind control thanks to Loki.

"You have to narrow the field. How many spectrometers do you have access to?" Bruce asked. Neither Steve nor Harry had any idea of what the conversation was about and began to tune it out. "Do you have somewhere for me to work?"

"Agent Romanoff, would you show Dr Banner to his laboratory, please," Fury requested.

Natasha stood up and began walking out of the room with Bruce following her. "You're gonna love it, Doc. We got all the toys."

Coulson walked over and began talking to Steve about his trading cards, so Harry motioned to Steve that he was going after Bruce. Receiving a nod from Steve, Harry set off at a jog to catch up with Bruce and Natasha. Natasha was just leaving Bruce in the lab as Harry reached them; she raised her eyebrows at him but otherwise said nothing.

"Harry," Bruce looked up from one of the computer screens in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

"Steve's busy talking with Coulson," Harry shrugged, hopping up onto an empty table so that he could sit down. "Figured I'd come keep you company."

"Right," Bruce watched him for a few seconds. "Know anything about gamma rays?"

"Not a thing," Harry said cheerfully, swinging his legs back and forth. After a few seconds Bruce went back to his work as if Harry wasn't there. Harry, being quite used to this technic from his relatives, was perfectly happy to sit in silence and watch as Bruce tapped away on the screens.

"Why are you so comfortable with me?" Bruce demanded suddenly, turning around to look at Harry.

Harry shot him a cheeky grin. "Maybe you're just not that scary?" Bruce looked like he wasn't going to accept that as an answer so Harry continued. "I knew someone who had a problem like yours and he was a great guy."

"What happened to him?" Bruce questioned.

Harry looked away and felt his smile fall off of his face. "He died in a war the same day that our side won. It was a great loss and I never saw why everyone would discriminate against him because of something he couldn't control."

"I'm sorry about your friend," Bruce said quietly. "But I have to at least try to control my problem. And war isn't the best place for me to do that."

_Bolt, I'm off to Stuttgart to stop Loki, you in? _Harry could see Steve walking into the room where his uniform was being kept. He quickly ran through Steve's memories of what had happened since he'd left the main room.

_Nah, I think you can handle this one without me. _Harry blinked a few times until he could see what was in front of him and not Steve. He wanted to go with Steve to make sure he didn't get hurt, but at the same time he knew that they needed to start spending some time apart.

"Steve's going to Germany," Harry informed Bruce. "Loki's there."

"How do you know that?" Bruce wondered, turning to look at him.

Harry tapped his fingers against his forehead. "I can talk to Steve telepathically."

Bruce nodded. "I guess in this place that's quite normal really. Is that all you can do?"

Laughing slightly, Harry teleported to the other side of the room and back again, then, while Bruce was still staring at him, he shape-shifted into a black cat. Bruce noticed the white bolt on his forehead before he turned back into a human.

"I can change into any animal," Harry said. "If you want, once all this is over, you can examine my blood to see if it will help cure you."

Bruce thanked him and then stayed quiet as Harry entered Steve's mind to watch what was happening. Harry made sure to keep up a narrative for Bruce so that when Steve came back with Thor and Tony both of them were expecting it. Loki gave Bruce an amused smirk as he walked past, surrounded by guards.

"He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Bruce joked after listening to Fury and Loki talk.

Harry snickered while Steve remained serious and turned to face Thor. "Loki's gonna drag this out. So, Thor, what's his play?"

"He has an army called the Chitauri, that none of Asgard nor any world knows," Thor explained. "He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the Earth. In return, I suspect, for the Tesseract."

"An army, from outer space," Steve sighed. "Of course. Wizards, aliens, gods, what next?"

"Vampires?" Harry suggested while everyone else continued the conversation.

"So he's building another portal," Bruce concluded. "That's what he needs Erik Selvig for."

"Selvig?" Thor looked up.

"He's an astrophysicist," Bruce told him quickly.

Thor frowned. "He's a friend."

"Loki has him under some kind of spell, along with one of ours," Natasha informed them.

"I wanna know why Loki let us take him," Steve said pensively. "He's not leading an army from here."

"At least we hope not," Harry muttered.

"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki," Bruce interrupted. "That guy's brain is a bag full of cats, you could smell crazy on him."

"Take care how you speak," Thor warned. "Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard, and he's my brother."

"He killed eighty people in two days," Natasha pointed out.

"He's adopted," Thor offered.

"Adopted?" Harry repeated. "Let me guess; he's got issues with his father." He didn't wait for a reply before continuing. "Why do I always end up fighting against someone with daddy issues!?"

Steve coughed and nudged Harry to get him to focus as Bruce began speaking again. "Iridium, what did they need the Iridium for?"

"It's a stabilizing agent," Tony announced as he walked in with Coulson. "Means the portal won't collapse on itself, like it did at SHIELD." He tapped Thor on the arm as he walked past. "No hard feelings Point Break, you've got a mean swing." There was a pause as he continued walking into the room. "Also, it means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long, as Loki wants."

He began to mess around with the computers in the centre of the room, not stopping talking as he went. "That man is playing gallaga!" He pointed at the guilty agent while Harry snickered. "Thought we wouldn't notice, but we did." He covered one eye and began turning to see the screens. "How does Fury even see these?"

"He turns," the female agent who'd been introduced as Agent Maria Hill told him. It sounded as if she was quite used to putting up with Stark coming out with things like that.

"Sounds exhausting," Tony dismissed. "The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. Only major component he still needs is a power source. A high energy density, something to kick start the cube."

"When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?" Agent Hill asked.

"Last night. The packet, Selvig's notes, the Extraction Theory papers," Tony answered. "Am I the only one who did the reading?"

"You're the only one who understood the reading," Harry snorted.

"You're Capsicle's brother," Tony pointed at him. "Shield doesn't like you because they can't find any information about you except what you've told them.

"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Steve demanded, bringing the conversation back to safer grounds and away from Harry.

"He's got to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier," Bruce responded as if that answered the question.

"Unless, Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunnelling effect," Tony countered.

Bruce continued the thought quickly. "Well, if he could do that he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor on the planet."

"Finally," Tony grinned. "Someone who speaks English."

"Is that what just happened?" Steve murmured, not taking in a single word that had been said.

"It's good to meet you, Dr Banner," Tony shook his hand. "You're work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."

"Thanks," Bruce said sarcastically.

"Dr Banner is only here to track the cube," Fury interrupted. "I was hoping you might join him."

"Let's start with that stick of his," Steve suggested. "It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a Hydra weapon."

"I don't know about that, but it is powered by the cube," Fury nodded. "And I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys."

"Monkeys?" Thor frowned. "I do not understand."

"Fly my pretties!" Harry cackled, causing Thor to stare at him. "Fly!"

"Ignore him," Steve rolled his eyes as Bruce and Tony left the room to go to the lab. "He had a troubled childhood."

"I hear voices in my head," Harry grinned at Steve. "They sound a lot like you."

"I think I preferred you as an animal," Steve commented. "At least then you couldn't talk."

"You wound me," Harry put a hand against his heart in mock pain and then transformed into his black cat form.

"Much better," Steve nodded. "I'm going to go see how Stark and Banner are getting on."


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

"_**Dark times lie ahead of us and there will be a time when we must choose between what is easy and what is right."**_

Once Steve had left in the direction of the labs, Harry silently padded around the room in his cat form. The agents that saw him either ignored him or assumed he was meant to be in that form. Though most of them didn't even know who he was since they hadn't been allowed access to his file.

From the link connecting him to Steve, Harry knew that Steve was arguing with Tony and Bruce about Fury's real intentions. It was an interesting conversation but Harry was more focused on Thor; he was Loki's brother, if anyone knew what they were dealing with it would be him.

Harry transformed back to human and went up to stand by Thor just as Fury was finishing speaking to him. From what Harry had heard in his other form, Fury was worried about what Thor would be willing to do against his brother.

"My brother, too, is a shape-shifter," Thor commented as they watched Fury leave. "His magic feels similar to yours."

"He can probably do more than I can," Harry shrugged. "But I have the whole 'immortal' thing going for me."

"You are most strange," Thor looked caught between amusement and worry when he looked at him.

Harry threw him a grin. "It's the Wrackspurts; they float in through your ears and make your brain grow fuzzy."

"We do not have those on Asgard," Thro frowned, looking genuinely worried about being attacked by Wrackspurts. "Are they a threat?"

"No," Harry sighed, deciding it was no fun to mention things like this if people were going to believe him. "Most people don't think they exist because you can only see them with Spectrespecs."

Before Thor could reply to this new statement, Natasha walked up to them and told them to follow her to the lab. Harry focused in on Steve and sped up; he had discovered Hydra weapons that Shield had been trying to replicate and he was getting more annoyed by Stark.

"Did you know about this?" Bruce demanded as soon as they walked through the lab doors, directing his question toward Natasha.

"You wanna think about removing yourself from this environment, doctor?" Natasha countered, side-stepping the question.

Bruce snorted. "I was in Calcutta, I was pretty well removed."

"Loki's manipulating you," she warned.

"And you've been doing what exactly?" He retorted angrily.

Natasha frowned at him. "You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you."

"Yes, and I'm not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy," Bruce argued. "I'd like to know why SHIELD is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction."

"Because of him!" Fury announced suddenly, pointing at the bewildered Thor. "Last year earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge mass that levelled a small town. We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously, out gunned."

"My people want nothing but peace with your planet!" Thor declared.

"But you're not the only people out there, are you?" Fury turned to look at Harry and the others followed his lead. Harry felt nerves settling inside his stomach; Fury thought he was some sort of visiting alien. "And, you're not the only threat. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched, they can't be controlled."

Fury was still watching Harry, the others were looking between the two cautiously; it was clear that Fury hadn't expressed his concerns about Harry to anyone in the group. Meanwhile, the sick feeling in Harry's stomach got stronger and he had to resist the urge to rub his temples as a head ache started behind his eyes.

"Like you controlled the cube?" Steve demanded, drawing everyone's attention back to the argument and away from Harry.

Harry reached out with the link to thank him, but he felt a blue filter as soon as he pushed his thoughts too close to Steve's brain. It was like something was directing Steve's emotions and manipulating them to make him argue with the others.

A powerful head ache stopped Harry from discovering anything else; the last time he'd felt that sort of pain had been when Voldemort was alive and forcing visions upon him. The sick pain and foreign emotions were just like that.

"You speak of control, yet you court chaos," Thor was saying. Harry knew that he's zoned out; it felt to him like everybody had exploded with anger. They were shouting at each other and yet somehow they all failed to see him stood in the background. Harry wanted to shout at them that they were being controlled but he, too, had to fight to keep a hold of his emotions.

"In case you needed to kill me, but you can't! I know, I tried," Harry's attention was drawn to Bruce and he froze as things began to click into place. Bruce continued speaking but everything inside of Harry was focused on the sceptre clasped in Bruce's trembling hand.

"Dr Banner," Steve soothed. "Put down the sceptre."

Bruce stared at his hand as if he hadn't even realized he'd picked the sceptre up. He placed it back on the table and moved away to look at one of the computer screens. Around Harry, everyone was still speaking and arguing but he couldn't hear any of it.

It was like having the Horcrux locket fastened around his neck again; the anger that he knew wasn't his, the mild head ache that was growing every second he was exposed to such a Dark artefact and the way the others were behaving.

"Oh my god!" Bruce exclaimed, his attention on one of the monitors. Before anyone could react, an explosion rocked the room, causing people to fly everywhere. Steve helped Tony up and pushed him out of the room, Harry was pleased to find that the blue haze had gone and he could connect properly with Steve again.

_I'm going to help Stark,_ Steve sent to him as he ran to the engine room to meet Tony. _Keep an eye on Loki._

Harry took a quick review of what was going on to decide where he'd be of more use. Bruce had transformed to the Hulk but Thor seemed to be dealing okay with that for the moment, Natasha wasn't in sight, and Tony was with Steve.

Hesitating slightly, Harry grabbed a head set so that he could keep up with what was happening. He could hear Steve and Tony discussing the broken engine and Fury ordering someone to keep the Hulk occupied but Natasha wasn't accounted for.

Hoping that Natasha was just busy and not hurt, Harry left the destroyed room and began making his way to the cell where Loki was being kept. Unfortunately, he couldn't just teleport while wearing the headset since technology had the tendency to explode when exposed to his magic.

As he entered the room, several facts flew at him very quickly; Thor was trapped inside Loki's cell, Coulson was pointing a rather large gun at Loki where he stood next to a control panel and the Loki that everyone could see wasn't the real one.

Since accepting his title as Master of Death, Harry had been able to know instinctively if someone was alive or not because he could feel their life-force. The fake Loki didn't have a life-force, but Harry could see the real Loki's life-force creeping up invisibly behind Coulson about to strike.

Swearing silently, Harry teleported to the area behind Coulson and pushed him forward just as Loki became visible and lashed out with the sceptre. The headset exploded inside Harry's ear but it was nothing compared to the pain caused by the sceptre that had been meant for Coulson as it pierced Harry's heart, passing all the way through his chest and catching Coulson on the shoulder.

Loki pulled the sceptre back and looked at Harry with surprise before grinning at his brothers' cry. Coulson caught Harry as he fell and helped lower him to the floor while Loki hit a button on the control panel and watched as Thor was dropped out of the sky.

"You're going to lose," Coulson announced quietly, showing no pain as he held Harry up with his injured arm.

"Am I?" Loki smiled in amusement, not noticing as Coulson moved the gun into his good hand and shifted so that he could aim.

"It's in your nature," Coulson continued. Harry bit back a hiss of pain as he was shifted to the side so that Coulson could free his arm.

"You're heroes are scattered, your floating fortress falls from the sky," Loki gave a pointed look at Harry. "Where is my disadvantage?"

"You lack conviction," Coulson subtly aimed the gun straight at Loki as he spoke.

"I don't think I-" Loki didn't finish his sentence as a blast of orange power was fired from the gun, hitting him in the chest and throwing him backwards.

"So that's what it does," Coulson murmured, putting the gun down and moving Harry onto the floor. "Looks like you were wrong when you said you were immortal."

"I'm not dead," Harry moaned. "I never said I was indestructible."

Painfully, Harry stood up and leant against the wall with Coulson's help. He shut the link that connected him to Steve so that Steve wouldn't be distracted by Harry's pain and then used his magic to create a black jacket to hide his wound.

He'd just managed to put the jacket on and zip it up when Fury entered the room followed by medical staff. Harry motioned them towards Coulson and they started to treat his arm.

"Never mind this!" Coulson snapped, waving them away. "Help Harry!"

"I'm fine," Harry told them, ignoring the way Fury had narrowed his eyes at him and Coulson's protests.

"You have burns down the side of your face," Fury pointed out. Harry raised a hand slowly, aware that every movement pulled at the hole in his chest, and removed the exploded headset from his ear. "But if you're fine then I'm calling a meeting for the remaining people."

Harry teleported into the meeting room and collapsed into one of the chairs. Tony and Steve, who were already seated around the table, gave him startled glances. Harry could feel Steve testing the link and saw him frown when he realized that it was closed.

"What's wrong with you?" He demanded, getting up and standing in front of Harry. "And if you say 'I'm fine' I'm going to chuck you out of a window."

Tony stared at them as Harry heaved a painful sigh and used magic to make his jacket disappear. There were four gasps of shock as his injury was revealed. Fury, Coulson and Tony stood next to Steve to get a closer look at Harry's chest and Fury called a medical team.

"Don't fuss," Harry frowned. "It hurts but I'll live."

"I don't see how," Tony commented, leaning forward to examine the hole. "Can you take your top off so I can see this better?"

Rolling his eyes, Harry vanished his t-shirt as well so that everyone could see the wound more clearly. Blood was falling in a steady stream from the hole and it was obvious that the sceptre had gone in through his back and pierced his heart and lungs. By all rights he should have died within seconds.

"This is going to scar," Steve muttered, clenching his fists. He hated seeing Harry hurt; it reminded him of all the times when he was stuck inside Harry's head, unable to help and forced to watch as Harry was put through emotional and physical pain.

"Scar?" Coulson gaped at Steve. "He should be dead!"

"I warned you I was immortal," Harry pointed out, watching his chest as the hole began to get smaller; it would be completely healed in a few hours and the less magic he used in the meantime the quicker it would heal. "So, what's the plan?"

"There is no plan," Fury replied. "We're dead in the air up here. Our communications, location of the cube, Banner, Thor. I got nothing for you. Lost my one good eye. Maybe I had that coming." There was a pause before he continued in a softer voice. "Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract. I never put all my chips on that number though, because I was playing something even riskier. There was an idea, Stark knows this, called The Avengers Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, see if they could become something more. See if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could."

"There's the plan then," Harry smiled cheerfully. "Become the Avengers and defeat Loki. What are we waiting for?" Fury glared at him and left the room with Coulson following him.

"We are not soldiers!" Tony retorted. "I'm not fighting just because Fury tells us to."

"Neither am I," Steve agreed. "But right now we gotta get this done. Now Loki needs a power source, if we can put together a list..."

"He made it personal," Tony interrupted.

"That's not the point," Harry said, wrapping some bandages around his chest with Steve's help.

"That is the point," Tony argued. "That's Loki's point. He hit us all right where we live. Why?"

"To tear us apart," Steve stated absently, stepping back to see if the bandages were okay before nodding.

"He had to conquer his greed, but he knows he has to take us out to win, right?" Tony looked like he was on the verge of a discovery. "That's what he wants. He wants to beat us; he wants to be seen doing it. He wants an audience."

"Right," Steve nodded uncertainly. "I caught his act in Stuttgart."

"Yeah," Tony said enthusiastically. "That's just previews, this is...this is opening night. And Loki, he's a full-tail diva. He wants flowers, he wants parades, he wants a monument built to the skies with his name plastered-"

He trailed off as we all realized where Loki was going to go. "Son of a bitch," Tony swore as Steve left the room to find Natasha. A second later Tony rushed out as well to fix his Iron Man suit and Harry was left sitting at the conference table alone while listening in on Steve.

_Barton's going to fly us to Stark tower,_ Steve informed him. _Meet us at the jet if you're coming_.

Harry snorted at the hopefulness that Steve felt about him not coming before creating himself a suit. He ended up copying the outfit that the male Shield agents were wearing except that he replaced the Shield logo with a red lightning bolt and changed the colour of the suit to black.

Steve raised his eyebrows at the outfit when Harry teleported into the back of the jet but didn't say anything. The hole in his chest had reached the point that it was only shallow and he could move around without being handicapped by pain.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

"_**It's the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more."**_

"Stark, we're heading north east," Natasha announced as they arrived in the jet.

"What, did you stop for drive-thru?" Tony joked. "Swing that park, I'm gonna lay 'em out for you."

Clint fired at the Chitauri as he flew until noticing that Thor was fighting with Loki on top on Stark tower. Unfortunately, Loki noticed the jet and shot at one of its engines, forcing the whole thing out of the sky.

"You call that a landing?" Harry asked as he followed Steve out of the jet. The others ignored him and began jogging in the direction of Start tower. They stopped outside of what looked to be a town hall and stared at the giant rip in the sky as a massive armoured creature flew out of it.

"Stark," Steve called. "Are you seeing this?"

"I'm seeing, still working on believing," Tony replied. "Where's Banner? Has he shown up yet?"

"Banner?" Steve questioned, watching as Tony flew closer to the creature.

"Just keep me posted," Tony told him.

A group of Chitauri warriors landed, surrounding them and forcing them to duck behind fallen cars. They saw Loki fly past on one of the machine that the Chitauri were using; he fired at the cars in the street to cause them to explode.

"Do you think you can hold them off?" Steve asked, turning to face Clint and Natasha.

"Captain," Clint looked at him. "It would be my genuine pleasure."

Clint and Natasha started firing off shots at the surrounding Chitauri while Steve went to help the nearby police force. Harry kept the link open in case of trouble and so that he didn't need a headset to know what was going on as he stayed behind one of the cars and focused on transforming himself.

"Don't shoot me!" He shouted at Clint and Natasha before changing into a black panther that was bigger than normal and jumping on top of the Chitauri. Harry used his claws to maul at the warriors and sometimes his teeth if he had the right angle.

"Just like Budapest all over again!" Natasha called to Clint as they fought.

Clint sent her a funny look as he continued firing arrows. "You and I remember Budapest very differently."

Steve rushed back to help them fight once he'd spoken with the police and Thor announced his own arrival with flashes of lightning that took out the nearby Chitauri. Harry changed his transformation so that he still had his panther eyes, ears, claws, teeth, stealth and strength but was otherwise human.

"The powers surrounding the cube are impenetrable," Thor told them as everyone moved forward to hear him.

"Thor is right," Tony agreed as he flew past. "We gotta deal with these guys."

"How do we do this?" Natasha asked.

"As a team," Steve declared.

Harry chuckled. "Knew you were going to say that." His voice was more guttural because of his partial transformation.

"I have unfinished business with Loki," Thor warned.

"Yeah," Clint sharpened his arrows. "Get in line."

"Save it," Steve interrupted. "Loki's gonna keep this fight focused on us and that's what we need. Without him these things could run wild. We got Stark up top, he's gonna need us..."

He trailed off as Bruce came riding up to them on the back of an old scooter. "So, this all seems horrible," he commented as he climbed off the bike and walked the rest of the distance.

"I've seen worse," Natasha stated, looking Bruce up and down pointedly.

"Sorry," he apologized, watching her for a reaction.

"No, we could use a little worse," she told him as he hid his surprise.

"Stark," Steve continued. "We got him, Banner, just like you said."

"Tell him to suit up," Tony said. "I'm bringing the party to you."

The Iron Man suit flew around the corner of a building into view with the giant flying creature following him. They all stared at it and prepared themselves to fight as it got closer.

"I don't see how that's a party," Natasha stated.

The creature exploded several cars as it drew nearer until; finally, Tony flew over them and the creature was in clear view. Bruce turned around to face it and began walked towards it without changing into the Hulk.

"Dr Banner," Steve called out to him. "Now might be a good time for you to get angry."

"That's my secret, Captain," Bruce looked at Steve and smiled. "I'm always angry."

He faced the monster at the last minute and changed into the Hulk easily, punching the creature and causing it to topple over and shed its armour so that Tony could get a good hit in. Everyone else ducked for cover from the bits of metal that were falling everywhere.

They ended up stood in a circle so that they could see from all sides. The Hulk let out a roar that was echoed by Harry whose vocal cords and instincts were still half-panther. Natasha alerted them as more of the creatures started to fly through the rip in the sky.

"Call it, Captain," Tony let Steve take over as leader.

"Alright, listen up," Steve started. "Until we can close that portal up there, we're gonna use containment. Barton, I want you on that roof, eyes on everything. Call out patterns and strays. Stark, you got the perimeter. Anything gets more than three blocks out, you turn it back or your turn it to ash."

"Wanna give me a lift?" Clint asked Tony.

"Right," Tony nodded and advanced towards Clint, grabbing the back of his suit. "Better clench up, Legolas."

"Thor, you've gotta try and bottleneck that portal, slow them down. You've got the lightning, light the bastards up," Steve continued as Thor took off from the ground and began addressing Natasha. "We stay here on the ground, keep the fighting here. And Hulk, smash!"

The Hulk gave a scary grin before jumping onto a building and attacking any of the Chitauri that got in his way. There was a flash of light as Thor used a high tower to conduct his lightning towards the rip.

"What should I do?" Harry growled, his vocal cords protesting the use of human speech.

Steve thought for a moment before deciding. "Fight wherever you can. Have you mastered wings yet?"

"Time to find out," Harry smiled, revealing his pointed fangs. The one area of shape-shifting that he had problems with was giving himself aspects of more than one animal at the same time. After a moment of intense concentration, Harry felt wings unfurl from his back.

"Let's see if they work," Harry jumped into the air and flew upwards until he met the Chitauri and started interrupting their flights, jumping from one machine to the other and attacking with his panther features.

He saw Natasha fly past on the back of one of the machines with Loki chasing her but Clint took care of the problem before he needed to. For Harry, it was getting harder to fight with the injuries he was getting and he felt that it was the same for Steve.

The wound on his chest was still sore and unhealed and he had cuts down his arms, legs and face from fighting close up. His wings were undamaged except for a long gash that started at the top of his left wing and finished at the bottom of his right one, it made flying incredibly painful since it opened every time he moved.

"I can close it!" Natasha announced. "Can anybody hear me? I can shut the portal down!"

"Do it!" Steve commanded as Harry landed on the top of a building to recover a little.

"No," Tony protested. "Wait."

"Stark, these things are still coming!" Steve argued.

"I got a nuke coming in, it's gonna blow in less than a minute," Tony informed them. "And I know just where to put it."

"Stark, you know that's a one way trip," Steve warned.

Tony ignored him and grabbed hold of the nuke, flying it straight up and into the portal. Harry teleported down to stand by Thor and Steve as they waited to see if Tony would come back, annoyed at his inability to teleport the nuke away without it exploding. Around them the Chitauri began to collapse and the creatures fell from the sky.

When it became apparent that Tony wasn't going to come back through the rip, Steve reluctantly gave the order for the portal to be closed. By some miracle, Tony fell through the rip just as the portal closed forever.

"Son of a gun," Steve breathed.

They waited for a moment for Tony to gain control of his suit and land safely. "He's not slowing down," Thor worried, beginning to swing his hammer around to give him the momentum he needed to fly. Harry watched carefully; he couldn't teleport Tony out of danger without exploding his suit with him still inside.

The Hulk took care of the problem as he snagged Tony out of the air and landed with him not too far away from where Thor, Steve and Harry were standing. They ran forward until they reached the Hulk; he was stood over Tony who was still not moving.

Thor ripped the mask off of Tony's face and Steve leant down to see if he was breathing. Harry observed him and noticed that Tony still had his life-force but that it was fading slowly from his body. They sat back in defeat and sadness while Steve watched the life-force leave through Harry's eyes. Suddenly, the Hulk let out a loud roar and Tony's body jolted as his life-force rushed back into his body.

"What the hell?" Tony gasped as the Hulk let out another roar, this time of triumph. "What just happened? Please tell me nobody kissed me."

"We won," Steve announced.

"Alright," Tony babbled. "Hey. Alright. Good job, guys. Let's just not come in tomorrow. Let's just take a day. Have you ever tried shawarma? There's a shawarma joint about two blocks from here. I don't know what it is, but I wanna try it."

"We're not finished yet," Thor reminded him, looking towards Stark tower.

"And then shawarma after," Tony sighed.

They made their way back to the tower slowly, being careful of their injuries. Harry returned his body to normal except for his wings that would need to heal before he could get rid of them. Clint joined them as they passed one of the buildings; he had cuts on his arms and was limping slightly.

Harry teleported to the roof and collected Natasha once they got to the tower and then they all entered the main room together where Loki was pulling himself up off of the floor. He looked very injured and from the way the Hulk was looking at him they all knew why.

"If it's all the same to you," Loki sighed when he saw them gathered around him. Clint had an arrow pointing at him and no one doubted that he'd shoot if he needed to. "I'll have that drink now."

Harry frowned when he saw Loki's life-force and sent his thoughts to Steve. Steve promised that they would study the matter more once they had Loki in custody.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

"_**Happiness can be found in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light."**_

Loki was left in manacles and a metal cover around his mouth so that he couldn't speak; he was then taken back to the Helicarrier that was safely on the ground while it was undergoing repairs. The Avengers were staying at the Helicarrier until Thor could take Loki back to Asgard for punishment, he would also be taking the Tesseract with him.

True to his word, Steve had told Fury that Harry needed to examine Loki before they let him leave and, with Thor's agreement, Fury released Loki into the authority of the Avengers. Tony was making plans to repair his tower and invited each of the Avengers to live in the tower whenever they wanted or needed.

By the end of the week, Steve, Bruce and Harry had agreed to live with him willingly, Natasha, Clint and Coulson had been ordered to by Fury since Natasha and Clint were part of the Avengers and Coulson was their handler, and Thor had said that he would live there when on Earth but he needed to return to Asgard.

Harry spent most of the week watching Loki and thinking up ideas for why his life-force would be so different to others. Steve occasionally helped out and Thor always replied to any questions that needed to be answered.

Eventually, Harry told Steve to call a meeting for the Avengers in one of the rooms. They all went willingly; curious about what Harry had discovered from watching Loki so long and anxious to know if it was good or bad news.

"I don't think Loki is in control," Harry announced bluntly. The Avengers had become used to his weird moods and how he acted insane one minute and serious the next, but they all gaped at him as if he'd really lost it once he said that.

"I, too, would like to think that best of my brother," Thor started cautiously. "But he has powerful magic; no one could force him to do something of this scale."

"I disagree," Harry shook his head. "His life-force is only half there; in a being as powerful as Loki I would have expected his life-force to be strong but it's flickering in and out of existence."

"What do you want to do about it?" Bruce demanded. "You don't have any proof that you're right."

Harry sighed and turned to look at Clint. "I was actually going to ask for your help with that."

"Me?" Clint frowned. "Why would I want to help him after all he's done?"

"Because he might be a victim too," Steve murmured, taking images and thoughts from Harry's mind. "And it doesn't hurt anything to make sure."

Everyone regarded Clint to see what he would choose to do; none of them would pressure him into helping, not even Thor who clearly wanted to. They all knew that Clint was still jumpy about the time he spent under Loki's control.

"How can I help?" He asked carefully, not agreeing but willing to try.

"I need to borrow your mind," Harry rushed out, continuing before he could react. "Just for a few seconds!"

"He's had enough people poking around in his head!" Natasha snapped, resting a hand on Clint's arm and glaring at Harry. "He doesn't need that again."

"What would it entail?" Clint questioned, ignoring Natasha's words but putting his hand on top of hers and squeezing gently.

"I'd need to enter your mind and find the path that Loki took, that should take me into his mind," Harry explained. "As soon as I've found the path I'd be out of your head, unless you wanted to stay connected. I don't even know for sure if it would work, I've never tried linking with anyone but Steve."

"What if you are right?" Tony wondered. "What if Loki hasn't been in control? What happens to him then?"

"That is up to Asgard to decide," Thor declared.

Tony rolled his eyes at him. "I meant that if he's good then couldn't he join the Avengers? We all know he's powerful, sounds to me like a good ally to have."

"Let's not get too hasty," Bruce cautioned. "Harry could be wrong."

"I'm willing to find out," Clint offered grudgingly. "But I want to stay connected; if Loki's innocent then I want to see it for myself."

"Is there any way we could all see?" Steve asked. "It would mean you wouldn't have to explain anything since we'd already know."

Harry shrugged. "I can try if you want."

They all nodded carefully; none of them wanted someone else in their brains but they were curious about Loki and wanted to see for themselves whether or not he was innocent. Bruce was the most cautious because he didn't want anything to trigger a Hulk-out and Steve didn't really care since he was so used to having Harry in his head and he knew what it would be like.

They gathered inside the room where Loki was being kept; it looked a lot like a jail only there was a glass wall that split the room in two so that they could see what the prisoner was doing. Harry mentioned that it would be easier to enter Loki's head if he was unconscious, so Clint posted sleeping gas in through the vents.

Once Loki was asleep, the Avengers sat down next to the glass wall facing Harry in a circle. Slowly, Harry reached out with his mind and connected himself to Steve so that they were linked fully; that was the easy part because they were so used to being linked that it felt unnatural not to be.

It was harder connecting to Thor because Harry had never created a link with him, but since Thor's mind was so open to the idea of magic and he was willing for Harry to enter if it meant helping his brother, Harry and Steve soon added Thor to their link.

Thor gasped as memories entered his head that weren't his own; there weren't many but he knew that if he wanted to he could enter Steve or Harry's head and see whatever he wanted. Both Harry and Steve felt the link connect and knew that they could link with Thor whenever they needed to again, much like they could with each other only more limited.

Bruce was next and he relaxed once he realized nothing would trigger the Hulk, he too saw foreign memories but he was more sensitive to the link that had expanded to include him; he could feel the trust that was passing between them all and their emotions.

Tony was pulled in with help from Bruce who used science as a lure to make him stop thinking about the impossibility of the situation. They all paused for a second to block out Tony's thoughts before they could continue; the reason he talked so much was that his mind worked so quickly and his mouth tried to catch up.

Natasha didn't accept the link fully which meant that it kept going out of focus and anything that happened was fuzzy and unclear until they convinced her to trust them completely. It took a while, but eventually she was added to the growing link too.

By the time Clint had entered the link, they were more than a team; they could feel each other's emotions and trusted each other not to look any deeper in their minds than they were comfortable with. Harry left his mind open so that they could see his memories and know how to control the link like he did with Steve.

Finally, once they were all comfortable and relaxed about being so connected, Harry pushed a little deeper into Clint's head. Not deep enough that he would find anything that Clint wanted keeping secret, but deep enough that he could find the link that had been created to Loki.

The others followed Harry through their link to him as he passed through the connection from Clint to Loki. It was like pushing through treacle and Harry knew that he'd been right in thinking that Loki needed to be asleep for anyone to enter his mind and that an existing link needed to be in place first.

As soon as they entered Loki's mind they knew that something wasn't right; it was like his head had been split in two. The front part of his brain was completely empty, like a machine waiting for a command, but the back part was sealed off by a wall.

Harry pushed against the wall and it moved inwards like thick caramel; they could get through but it would take a while and a lot of strength. Preparing themselves, they pushed the wall again, but this time when the wall went in they stepped forward to walk through the thick substance.

It took them over half an hour to push through the entire wall and once they got there they were assaulted by memories from Loki's perspective. It was obvious that Loki wasn't showing them the memories on purpose because they were personal.

It started with a memory of a fight in a frozen land that they knew of as Jotunheim from Thor's mind, they watched as Loki fought off Frost Giants until one of them grabbed his hand. They felt his shock and fear as his arm turned blue before he killed the Frost Giant.

The memory finished there but another one began straight after it; this one showed Loki talking with Odin and being told his real identity. Thor made a sound of protest as Loki called himself a monster and they felt Loki's horror and revulsion.

That memory had started with Loki holding the casket of Jotunheim as his skin changed to blue and his eyes went red. They didn't know why but it seemed important and the memory slowed down to make sure they saw it.

The next part of his life that they were shown was a guard handing him Odin's staff and that was when the memories became internal. They entered Loki's mind and what had happened to him at that moment. As soon as Loki took the staff to lead Asgard they felt Loki's body react violently.

His consciousness was thrust down to a deep side of his brain where it seemed to go to sleep. Thor mentioned that it was a lot like what his father went through when he fell into the Odinsleep, except that Loki's body stayed awake. Instincts and dreams filled the part of his mind that should have made decisions, causing him to protect himself no matter what and act on thoughts that he normally wouldn't.

This memory slowed down as well so that they all saw the moment Loki took the staff. Inside Loki's mind the two events connected as one; because Loki had released his Jotun heritage by holding the casket and then picked up Odin's staff which was only meant for someone of Asgard, his body rebelled against the two forces flooding his body by forcing him into a type of Odinsleep.

The next memory skipped a big part of Loki's life but it was the only relevant memory they needed to see; it showed Loki holding onto the edge of the staff while dangling over the broken Bifrost. They felt Loki wake up at the same time that Odin took back the role as king. Loki saw all of the things that he'd done while he hadn't been in control and they all felt his depression as he thought the only way to escape was to let go and fall to what he thought would be his death.

The last part was Loki waking up surrounded by the Chitauri; they were following orders from someone called the Other and they knew all about what had happened to him. Painfully, the Other had forced Loki into the back of his own mind and sealed him away behind a wall while the Other took control of his body.

Loki was fully aware of everything the Other had been causing his body to do and he'd been unable to do anything. Even Clint felt horrified at the idea that Loki had been trapped in his own body while he could see everything he was been forced to do. At least when Clint's mind had been taken over he hadn't been aware of what he'd been doing.

_Can you undo it?_ Thor asked, sending the thought to Harry's mind but, since they were all linked, the whole team heard it.

_I will if I can,_ Harry replied. He pushed through the rest of the memories and began creating a link that would connect the two sides of Loki's mind. Harry knew that once the link was created Loki's magic would fix what was wrong and make sure that the Chitauri couldn't control him again.

Harry made sure to add an open connection that led to the Avengers link in case Loki wanted to use it. Creating the link was incredibly tiring because he had to keep going from one side of the wall to the other while focusing all of his concentration on what he was doing.

Finally, after what felt like a lifetime, the link was finished and they all felt Loki taking control of his mind again while still asleep. They drew out of his mind and slowly separated from each other until they were back inside their own heads. The link was still there; they could connect with one another again if they wanted to but they didn't have to worry about anyone forcing their way into their minds because the link would only work if everyone involved were open to it.

Steve caught Harry as he fell forward; creating the link while keeping everyone connected had taken a lot out of him. Thor unlocked Loki's cell and removed the manacles and muzzle from his unconscious brother. Natasha and Clint left to go find Coulson and Fury to explain the situation and ask what would happen to Loki once he woke up.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

"_**It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."**_

It was decided that Thor would still take Loki and the Tesseract back to Asgard and that Loki's fate would be dealt with there. If Loki was found innocent, like he should be, and wanted to join the Avengers than he would be allowed to providing one of the other Avengers kept an eye on him until they were sure he had full control of his mind back.

Loki still hadn't woken up properly; he looked awake and, according to Thor, he was acting like his old self but he seemed permanently dazed and his sentences tended to trail off because he got distracted so easily. Harry assured them that they were just side-effects of being locked out of his mind for so long and that once he was fully connected again he would be fine.

The other Avengers went back to Start tower once Thor and Loki had gone. The tower was quite broken up and some of the rooms looked like they could fall down at any moment, but Tony made sure each Avenger had a room to stay in until the tower was repaired.

Pepper, Tony's CEO and girlfriend, lived in the tower with them and made sure that they had everything they could need or want. Another surprise for them had been Jarvis; Tony's AI who was connected to every room in the tower and available to answer any questions or help when he could.

Both Bruce and Tony were pleased that the labs had been saved from the destruction and they spent most of their time in there. Tony had banned anyone else from entering the labs on the grounds that they weren't as smart as him.

For Steve, Clint and Natasha the workout room was where they spent most of their time; Tony made sure to keep stocked up on punching bags so that Steve could replace any that he broke and he talked about adding an archery range for Clint once the rest of the tower was finished.

Harry wandered around the tower, doing different things depending on what his mood was like. The others also got used to the fact that Harry would sometimes spend the day in the form of some type of animal; he once left the tower to spend the day as a bird.

Coulson, while meant to be living with them, went backwards and forwards from the Helicarrier to the tower so often that Fury told him in the end that as long as he checked up on the Avengers occasionally then he didn't have to live with them too.

Pepper was surprised and relieved to find that both Harry and Steve could cook; she had expected to have to hire a cook for them for fear that they would order take out every night if not. Natasha and Clint knew the basics for when they were on missions but neither of them cooked for enjoyment and they both preferred not to bother.

It was four months before the tower was back to its previous state and Tony had added new features for the Avengers. He left the 'A' on the outside of the tower and didn't bother adding other letters. The construction should have taken much longer but Tony paid the builders a lot of money and the Avengers helped out wherever they could.

Thor came back from Asgard six months after he'd left and moved into the Avengers tower. He told them that he wouldn't be staying forever because he would have to go back to Asgard and rule when his father wished to step down, but for the moment he was willing to stay on Earth.

He told them that Loki had fully recovered during his time on Asgard and that he'd decided to stay there and make amends before joining Thor on Earth. Loki thought that it would be best if he spent some time apologizing to his parents but agreed that he needed to atone for his sins on Earth as well.

Fury added Loki to the Avengers program by saying that the best way he could make up for what he'd done was to fight other criminals and save people. Loki wasn't thrilled by the idea but acknowledged that it would be beneficial towards redeeming himself.

Harry found himself feeling quite lost once the war was won; he'd done what he came to do and, while there would always be other villains to fight, he found himself wondering what had happened to his friends back in his own universe.

In the end, he told Steve and the others not to worry about him but that he would be leaving for a few days. He then attempted to teleport to the cave where he and Steve had first met Thana after completing the ritual that had allowed them to enter this universe. The teleportation took longer than usual and Harry got the feeling that he only managed it because Thana let him.

When he opened his eyes, he was stood in the cave again with Thana, only this time both arches looked like peaceful waterfalls. Thana stood in the middle of them again, wearing the same outfit and looking like she'd always been there.

"What is it you want, Young Harry?" Thana asked mournfully. "I cannot allow you to go back through the arch to your own universe. I warned your choice was permanent."

"I don't want to change my mind," Harry replied, thinking of the Avengers and the links he'd made with them. In some ways he was closer to them than he'd ever been with his Wizarding friends. "I just want to know if you can tell me what happened to my friends."

"I don't deal with the living, Young Harry," Thana sighed. "I can only tell you things about the dead or dying."

"They're alive and well then?" Harry confirmed, reading between the lines of what she'd said. "If you can't tell me about them then they must be doing fine."

"Indeed," Thana gave her semblance of a smile that caused shivers to run down Harry's spine. "It is not your old universe that you should worry about." She gestured with a hand towards Steve's universe.

At first Harry couldn't see any difference between the two arches, but after a few seconds he saw a flash of red that fell through the waterfall like veil. It gave Harry a sense of foreboding and he turned back around to look at Thana.

"What does that mean?" Harry questioned nervously.

"It means, Young Harry," Thana said. "That war will be coming your way once again and he will threaten even you."

**A/N: I can't believe how many people added this to Story Alert and/or favoured it! I hope you all enjoyed it but I'm afraid that it's finished for now. I am planning on writing a sequel when the next Avengers film comes out, but I won't know for sure until then. **

**Thank you for reading and please remember to leave a comment! :)**


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